Nurses are the frontline soldiers of the healthcare field, wtnessing atrocities in the trenches that most of us never see. But while many great doctor-authors — Richard Selzer, Lewis Thomas — have brought poetic insight to their calling, there are far fewer well-known memoirs from this essential profession. Mary Jane Nealon remedies that lack with her vivid and stirring account of a life spent ministering to the terminally ill, diffusing the suffering and grace she’s encountered into these pages.﻿﻿